The crowd had steadily grown denser as we advanced, and our bodyguard had more and more difficulty in screening us from close scrutiny. The cumulative effect of these ranks upon ranks of gigantic folk was most peculiar: it gave me the impression that I was of dumpy stature, while Poyning, as I noticed from my place on the litter, looked a downright dwarf against such a background. In all that throng I saw no full-grown man under six feet, many stood well above, and giants of seven feet were by no means rare. Everywhere we saw the bare heads of dark brown or black hair, the wonderfully chiselled clean-shaven faces, and the penetrating black eyes of the men who had first met us on the hillside. There were women in the crowd, too, clad not greatly unlike the men, but whereas the hair of the latter usually reached no lower than the shoulders and was sometimes even shorter, the women wore theirs in luxuriant coils bound over the nape of the neck. It was impressive and profoundly fascinating to watch these people. Not only was there on every face a dignity which, while it never became solemn, broke into lighter shades very seldom indeed, but the whole concourse moved with a superb, willowy grace that to my mind was poetry itself. At length we came to a halt. Philipson's litter detached itself from the procession and disappeared through the pillared portals of a broad-faced building that reminded me of "restorations" of the Erechtheum of Athens, while we passed on to a house of similar cast, but smaller and plainly of less importance. The building was of one tallish storey, approached by a flight of low steps in white marble; Ionic columns supported the massive portico, with its blank cornice and gently gabled roof, and behind this, in the wall proper, a door of some dark wood gave entrance to the interior.